Katherine Day Part 5

From sketch to print by Katherine Day.

Part 5
Katherine Day Finds Her Place in the Universe - The Eden for the Artist in Residence

By Ted and Suzanne Currie

     "Autumn painted Algonquin in new and splendid tints. She coloured the maples that lined the streets a dazzling gold, with here and there at the corners, a scarlet tree for variety, or one of rose pink or even deep purple. And when the leaves began to fall the whole world was a bewildering flutter of rainbows. The November rains came and washed the gorgeous picture away, and the artist went all over it again in soberer tints, soft greys and tender blues, with a hint of coming frost in the deep tones of the sky."
     The passage above was set in Orillia, and vicinity, by author Marian Keith, in her 1929 novel, "The End of the Rainbow," a book that Katherine Day certainly would have had access to, being from Orillia; and as well, having had contact with the writer many years earlier, while Keith was teaching locally. There will be more on Marian Keith, a pen name by the way, later in this series on Katherine Day.
     Windswept fields of still-rich greens and now vibrant yellows, roll in the autumn wind gusts, as if waves on the blue-green ocean, tumbling into themselves in white froth, smoothing down into the earth from which this bountiful harvest has been generated. It is as poetic as it is romantic, at this moment, to stand here overlooking the same landscape witnessed, nearly eighty years ago, by artist, modern day homesteader, Katherine Day, who found Oro-Medonte's geographical contrasts, and seasonal peculiarities, well suited to her creative needs. The crisp, chill of the autumn wind today, as it sweeps this picturesque landscape, across the farm fields newly harvested, is strangely nostalgic and sweetly sentimental; subtly haunting the biographer, re-living some of the artist's travels through this eden of countryside, where she had built her enchanted residence, known as "Hawthornes", and later the dwelling place she called "Pax Cottage," a short distance away. She would have found an autumn day as this, a treat for the senses, and dawdled about her work, to enjoy the offering of the season, and the nostalgia of autumn transformation, on her farmstead and especially in her cherished flower gardens. There is a powerful allure of this part of the world, and we will let Katherine Day, in her own words, explain what made it all so inspiring to the artist.
     In artist Katherine Day's handwritten journal, circa. the early 1940's, she writes about the adventure of seeking out a suitable property in the region of Oro-Medonte, west of the shore of Bass Lake, near Orillia, noting the following about the landscape belonging to the small farmstead, she and a friend had been poking through one Sunday morning. She writes:
     "There was a marshy bit of land at the back of the field in which the house stood. No great effort would turn it into a lily pond, or a great big effort would turn it into a swimming pool. To the west lay the blue Medonte hills with a road winding up and down until it lost almost every house that follows it. I found that out later. To the east lay the prosperous farm we had just left. To the south you could see Bass Lake, very blue with the Oro Hills in the background, and just opposite the gate, was a quaint little house set in gnarled old branches of apple trees and a wild-enough garden. To the north stretched the woods, and as we learned of the fifty acre farm, this house stood on; half of it was woodland.
     "To be more specific, the house with the orchard stood about a hundred feet back from the road in one large field, which contains also the oozy marsh-land, and which led further back into the woods. The woods then stretched east in a long narrow stand. The long dimensions of the line fence at the western side, also more woods, belonged to the prosperous farm. That left a squarish field between the orchard and the rest of the line fence of the prosperous farm to the east. Here at the border was a most lovely little grove of trees, in the autumn, crowded with choke cherries, and has in the spring, a mass of flowers, fragrant and spicy, overhead and under-foot.
     "Overhead the sumac, the bittersweet wine, the wild cherry, oak and ash in a twenty foot wide stand; under foot in spring the hepatica, the trilliums, the violet. There had also been a seldom used wagon track through to the farm on the marsh, where there was a gravel pit. This disposes of half the farm. To the east of the house the orchard, to the west, a long sloping meadow which ran into a swamp; bush at the end of the 'long fifty'. The swamp bush extended along the western boundary which was a roadway going north and south, more or less, as these concessions have a decided bias towards running north westerly and south easterly.
     "Following along the western fence you come again to my neighbors of the vacant farm who owns the gravel pit, and the bush ends there about a hundred yards to the east of the road, and becomes a field which proceeds up the slope until it reaches the other stand of timbers. There is a wide space then of some two hundred tiny ponds in this field in which the lot, receive a vigorous western wind, that comes howling over the fields. And of this I know.
     "Back in the house then, where the sheep gathered in groups staring and stomping and marching off like soldiers at drill time. It was a little place with large logs eleven inches square, cedars in prime condition. To the west an elm had grown under the sill, and had rotted the lowest log away. We counted its rings and found thirty, which would make it a tiny sapling when old Paddy died, the fellow who had once lived in this house. And after that the house had not been lived-in, and the elm had grown into a mighty tree and had recently been cut down. It took two men to do the job.
     Katherine Day had apparently found her Eden after a short search. It would become the property and soon-to-be residence, she would call with great sentiment, "Hawthornes." The next entry into the journal, jumps ahead a considerable period of time, from the initial exploration of the property, to the point she had officially established Hawthornes. It is dated April 12, 1941. She pens into the journal the observation that, "Spring came late this year but with a rush. When the sap pails were put out on the maples, the flow ceased to come almost overnight. My acres tapped had a picturesque arrangement in this small maple woods. We (she doesn't explain what "we" means at Hawthornes), had some sixty trees tapped. In between two birches was slung across a gnarled and tough branch, some eight fruit trees across the ground (for protection for the fire pit). To this, he (no identity given, except to suggest it was the same friend as previous), was attached two great iron lengths borrowed from his two neighbors, who looked greedily at his own syrup, and he had to pay them for the loan of their huge kettles, with ample refined syrup, to his regret. To keep the wind from blowing out his fire, and to keep his fires going slowly, on the west and east of his fine shelter, he place some big stones. This, with the pots filled with sap, he stokes his fires (through the night) and waits for his reward. But this spring, the flow of sap was slight because of the weather. The weather headed into heat ahead of time, and the sap languished in the taps.
     "I have spread manure on the garden patch and also on the English violets. They do appreciate this care, and are sending out many strong leaves. This was their second coming. The last one was given the previous autumn. I was raking the long grass between the apple trees in front of the lilac hedge. This then is full of bulbs. The snow drops are well in bloom. Some of the originals lost their heads, so to speak, by way of the house. Passage of all kinds of creatures, over time with many feet, nipped them in their prime. Animals dining on the grasses, tossed by their imaginative, creative strolling around, like the devil, the child told-of in a tale, seeking out untapped mischief of endeavour to bestow.
    "The raking, obviously, is very necessary now, before most of the bulbs come along. Otherwise their yellow heads stand in the way. The raking, and the grass grown longer, makes it all look more and more untidy. Until you have to paint and frame flowering bulbs with shame in your heart at this surrounding then, of disorderly, dingy grass. The frogs started to croak last night, a sort of sleepy clucking croak. The cold came so quickly last fall that I could not throw earth over the moss roses. I tried to lay them down flat to protect them. Last year I did and their blooms were wonderful. Now we'll see whether they will bloom as well. Just wrapped them with canvas last winter.
     "Last year one moss rose had 36 blooms as tight and big as a cup. The other had 32 large white blooms. It is creeping up the front of the house. I have stapled it with a corresponding tie, to the woodwork of the house, which can be easily cut down in the fall to lay it flat. Today I recovered some of the covering of straw and earth. And my other climbing plants around the house seem very healthy. It pays to lay the climbers down and cover them up before winter. They grow steadily as soon as the fine weather comes, and makes good buds; they strengthen day by day. The Iris were growing hardily from the time the snow left them. They like the sun and wind and don't object to ordinary soil.
     "April 13, 1941. Easter Sunday. Our first spring rain, which was delightfully soft. All the raked patches on the land turned green and leaves started to open on the black currant vegetation. The lilac and the yellow flaming currant as well. The Persian Yellow Rose shows their distinct leaves turning green. I took up the three roses from the great stalks and stapled them to the clapboard of the house. Here buds are beginning to swell. When 'Princess' (she often named her plants) was orange, the copper coloured climber and the unknown climber (apple pink) on the east trellis by the sand walk, my neighbors (the other flowers in the vicinity) gave me this later-one almost in disgust. They said it was white and had blamed me once for her creation, and then went trailing along the ground instead of climbing. Thinking it was white I planted it beside the copper climber and here, in contrast, it has bloomed pink instead. When the two of them started blooming they should look gypsy-like. Who but a gypsy weaves orange and pink together. I hope they bloom abundantly. All three roses have been under a loose layer of leaves and earth all winter. They look well. And I am only sorry that I was too late with the Moss Roses. I also hope they will forgive me for my intrusions on their good nature, and bloom as well as they did last year.
     "I tied up the roses with raffia that was left to me in a great bundle by a forgetful friend who now probably can't remember where she had left it - but will one day suddenly think about it, and require its services. Raffia is suitable for gardening ties because it is made from a leaf itself, and is quite gracefully retired when its immediate usefulness is over. My English Violets under the litter of earth and leaves were bright green and bringing forth these little round buds already. A Daffodil is already showing its yellow. I threw manure on the small bed at the back of house, just in front of my root house. Among the roots of the White Raspberry canes and the three Gooseberry bushes, I dug up the ground, And the hens who had crept through the gaping hole in their gate, made by Hortense (one of the hens), last fall, fell upon them unexpectedly, chortling to herself about the success of the surprise attack. My dandelion wine of last year is perfectly perfumed with a pungent, sharp aroma and a hot taste of dandelion. I make one gallon each year.
     "Finally, I brought what was left of the unfortunate batch of maple syrup, into the sturdy fireplace to boil down further."
     "The rainbow shows the gradual movement of colour from red through the spectrum back to red again. So does a prism. So does a broken bit of glass in the sunshine. There you see colour at its purest, a pure red, a pure blue, and a pure yellow." This was the artist in residence, who looked our her window at Hawthornes upon the changes spirited by the four seasons, and mixed her paints accordingly.
     We will resume our biography of Katherine Day tomorrow. Please join us for the continuation of this story about the artist-farmer of Oro-Medonte.